For all of the quality care it delivers, the U.S. health care system is one of the most dysfunctional sectors of the U.S. economy. The government spends nearly 50 cents of every dollar spent on health care, most consumers are almost entirely insulated from the cost of their decisions, and employers decide what kind of health insurance their employees get.
But while the U.S. health care system begs for reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act only exacerbates all of the current problems, promising to devolve into a price-controlled system rationed and micromanaged by bureaucrats.
IPI believes there are much better options: reform the tax treatment of health insurance; remove the state and federal mandates and regulations that make coverage more expensive; pass medical liability reform; and promote policies that create value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace.
Senate Bill Would Allow Over-the-Counter Sales of Birth Control Pills
Prior to the passage of Obamacare, allowing the sale of birth control over the counter would have been hailed by liberals as a great achievement for women, says Merrill Matthews. It would have improved access to care by lowering out-of-pocket costs and eliminating the need to spend time and money to see a doctor for the prescription, which is a bigger burden for hourly workers and lower-income women, he said.
My Wife's Losing Her Obamacare Coverage Because The Insurer Lost $400 Million
If you ask President Obama how Obamacare is going, he will say awesome, couldn’t be better. But how about asking 367,000 Texans who are having their health insurance coverage eliminated because the insurer lost $400 million on that group in 2014.
After 50 Years, Medicare Should Get Early Retirement
aily, In a column for Investor's Business DGrace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute and Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation highlight some of the same problems with cost and quality, but they also add important insight about how Medicare has caused rising health care costs.
Medicare Turns 50--Here's Why People Still Love It But Hate Obamacare
Unlike Obamacare, Medicare was bipartisan, targeted and an improvement. It has hit 50 largely unchanged—at least for seniors—from its original form. Obamacare is unlikely to make 10 without significant changes—if it survives at all.
Medicare's Birthday: A Failed Centralized Program Turns 50
On this 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, as our nation struggles with its latest effort at health reform, it's a good time to reflect on the programs' successes and failures.
Planned Parenthood May Walk A Thin Legal Line, But Do Its Practices Stand Up To Ethical Scrutiny?
It is legal in the U.S. for medical facilities to be reimbursed for their reasonable costs for harvesting human tissue and organs, but it is illegal to sell them for profit.
Sanders Calls For Single-Payer
"If we can’t repeal Obamacare, the country may be forced into a debate over whether a single-payer system is more efficient than Obamacare, and we may conclude it is," said IPI's Merrill Matthews.
Tavenner Is The Perfect Pick For AHIP As Big Insurers Become Public Utilities
This organization knows something about insurance, and a generous interpretation of its action is that hiring Tavenner is “buying a little insurance.”
Will Conservatives Eventually Prefer Single-Payer Health Care to Obamacare?
If Republicans are unable to repeal or somehow bypass Obamacare, conservatives may eventually decide that a single-payer system—such as expanding Medicare to everyone—would be better than the Obamacare status quo.
Common Ground: Aging Expensively in the U.S.
President Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare spending over 10 years in order to claim that Obamacare was "paid for." A better option, writes IPI's Merrill Matthews, "would have been to aggressively target Medicare and Medicaid fraud, which could have provided the same amount of savings."
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